Connectin﻿g Audiences

Course Description:This course will consider the principles and methodologies pivotal to providing diverse audiences with meaningful experiences with art. Students will develop relevant tools for community engagement, public programming, and outreach initiatives. Topics include the artists’ and designers’relationship to society, learning theory, audience research, and evaluation techniques.

Course Objectives: Throughout the course, learners will:· Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of learning theories and educational pedagogy that inform best practices in art and museum education.· Develop an understanding of their individual pedagogical approach, and be able to define their beliefs.· Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of audience research and evaluation methods, applying action research to individual and team projects. · Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of audience needs, and be able to define targeted (and appropriate) goals and experiences for primary audiences.· Develop programming that demonstrates an understanding of multiple facets of program planning and implementation, including defining and engaging the audience, determining goals, and evaluation.· Demonstrate an increased ability to critically approach and respond to exhibitions and experiences with art in museums, galleries, and the community.· Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of theories on art and the nature of experience.Attend a variety of exhibitions and programs.

Fall 2014 Poe House Project

12/19/2014

This fall, through a grant provide by MICA's Office of Community Engagement, students in Connecting Audiences engaged in a partnership project with the Excel Academy, an alternative middle/ high school in west Baltimore, and the Poe House Museum, located across the street from the high school. Connecting Audiences students visited the school first, to meet with teachers and learn about the students and the school community, and then created a series of monthly museum visits for middle and high school students to explore the Poe House Museum and other sites in Baltimore related to Poe. Major goals of the project were for MICA students to further understand how to design meaningful museum experiences for a specific audience or community; and for Excel Academy students to make personal connections to the life and history of Edgar Allan Poe, through interacting with art and artifacts contained in the Poe House Museum. The project culminated in December 2014 with a visit and tour of the MICA campus for the Excel students, a reception and screening of a video created by Connecting Audiences students about the project. View the Poe House project video here!

Observational Evaluations

11/24/2014

Students in Connecting Audiences visited local galleries and museums to conduct observational evaluations, and created written reports of what they found. Observational evaluations consist of discreetly tracking visitors in a defined gallery space and recording information such as where and for how long visitors stop, and what observable behaviors they exhibit, such as pointing, talking with a companion, reading label text, and using interactive components or interpretive materials. Through observation, an objective account of how visitors move throughout a space and interact with works of art and exhibition components can be found. Some sample observational evaluation reports and tracking tools can be found below.

Personal Pedagogies

﻿9/25/14

Teaching is a creative act central to connecting with audiences for exhibitions and events. It is important to understand why and how we teach. After considering theories on art, education, and the nature of experience, students in Connecting Audiences wrote their own personal pedagogy statements, putting into words their own theories, beliefs, and values, about what constitutes and educative experience, and their role as a curator/artist/designer in creating such experiences for others. Here are some samples. These statements are meant to be living documents, and will be revisited by students at the end of the semester.

Kelly Johnson

"Art is partly communication, but only partly. The rest is discovery." William Golding

My personal philosophy on the role of education in museums is to set up the conditions for visitors to create personal meanings/relationships with artworks through a process of individual discovery. This means allowing visitors to create meaningful connections with the work by relating them to past experiences, relationships, and personal interests by way of direct or subtle prompts. The prompts, including but not limited to details within exhibition design—art content, wall text, navigation, interactive stations, publications, etc—and programming, should create an overall experience that is distinctly different from the everyday. There should be an immediate, overarching concept that is easily grasped from the artwork on view, supported by contexualizing details as mentioned above.

While I believe the focus should be on facilitating a digestible experience with artwork, a museum experience should be designed with audience engagement in mind, answering the following questions with intentionality: How should the visitor feel in the exhibition? What should they focus their attention toward (i.e. primary, secondary focuses)? How does the exhibition allow for moments of discovery and what kind of discovery will they engage in? How does the exhibition promote interaction/discussion between visitors? How does the visit anticipate or refute visitors’ expectations? Does the exhibition challenge any of the visitor’s pre-existing beliefs—if so, how? What does the visitor think about after their visit? How does this affect their interest in returning to the exhibition or in seeking out other exhibitions? How can the experience encourage a visitor to share it with others in conversation or even recommend others to attend? Does the experience provide a new way of thinking or a story that the visitor can take with them into future experiences?

I also believe in encouraging visitors to have the confidence to experience art on their own and to trust in their own reactions and interpretations of the work, regardless of prior knowledge, visual literacy, or art experience. I would like to figure out how to do this in a subtle way, perhaps with an insightful gallery guide or brief, encouraging marquee wall text.

Taylor Williams

I am a semiologist who believes that our world is filled with symbols. Not just artwork contains meaning but also the act of making art, the artists studio, museums, the names of the artist, and even the color of the walls all add to the significance of our lives. An experience with art is not just about discovering the personal meanings we find in art, but also recognizing that we do approach a piece of art with our own lexicons and that there are different ways to look at a piece of art. An experience with art should make us self aware of the ideologies and preconceptions that we bring to the piece. Art is a form of record keeping or communication within a culture that represents beliefs on beauty and importance. Due to this quality, an art experience should be comparable to reading literature. Like literature, experiences can very from enjoying it casually to significant analysis. Ultimately, a reading of a piece of art can lead to deductions regarding the context into which it was made. Art is a physical result of the context of which it was made, and can provide a riveting riddle to learning about other people, times, and cultures. Through the potential learning experience about other cultures, we can then better understand ourselves. Like a puzzle, the physical form of art can provide a starting place to have a more full understanding of the world. I also believe in individualized learning styles and experiences, and that any curator, teacher, or event programmer should serve more as a guide than an authority. Every viewer of art is different, both in their interests and their style of learning, so there should not be one art engagement technique utilized over others. Engagement with art can be seen through a variety of techniques such as discussion, lecture, interactive activities, and independent observation. Learning, knowledge, and individualized growth, through art should be a primary goal though, no matter what route that takes.

Melani Douglass

My goal is to create environments that encourage all who enter to experience the FREEDOM of exploration and experimentation. I want each person, our process and the product to be AFFIRMED through our collaboration. An old African proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Within my network of esteemed change agents, makers and thinkers, INTERDEPENDENT relationships that enhance the experience of the individual and the group are of utmost importance. There is a natural evolution of self and all that happens through collective work and shared responsibility that has the power to TRANSFORM personalized trauma into collective HEALING. The process of creating a community that affirms members within starts with the focus of resources on healing individuals. Healed people usually heal others. The healing one receives becomes reciprocal in environments that welcome and facilitate healing. We are a community of creatives that serve each other, our community and ourselves by making a commitment to our individual and collective healing through the arts. This process allows me to keep the F.A.I.T.H. in the direction of our society.

Jen Sullivan

Until I turned twelve, my classroom environment consisted of my backyard, parks, community centers, the kitchen table, gymnasiums, campgrounds, and a room in our home. My mom was the teacher of my five siblings and I, as well as the instructors of the activities that she brought us to. We attended swimming lessons, art classes, gym classes, theatre groups, summer camps, and various nature activities. The learning environment that we grew up in was flexible, diverse, and inspiring. We had the ability to explore different topics and to mix up our schedules. This upbringing developed my imagination and identity, which led to the freedom I felt to pursue art as a career.

My journey through early education also came with difficulties. I had eye issues and a speech impediment that both called for therapy. These struggles led to a lack of confidence and a belief that reading comprehension was unattainable.

Through the highs and lows of my education, I have learned more about what is needed to create a successful and enriching learning experience.

I believe that an educational environment should be a place free of fear and intimidation. A student must feel that he has the ability to explore and that if he messes up, he has the freedom to begin again. Learning should be based around the student’s needs, not the environment’s. All kinds of intelligence should be affirmed and encouraged. If one student is strong in math and the other in writing, they should both be valued equally. Students should be taught that even though they may struggle, they are able to grow in that area.

Overall, I believe in cultivating a love and desire for life-long learning in students. A student should be taught that her role as learner develops throughout her life and that a classroom can take any form. Believing that learning has an “end” is dangerous as it stunts the full capacity of a present experience.

My role as a designer for Social Change is to establish these ideals in the environments that I am involved in and in the work that I create and to promote these ideals in both life and in educational systems. When the audience interacts with my work, I want them to feel the freedom to explore, but to also be moved to change or create change.

Museum Memories

9/15/2014

Students in Connecting Audiences started the semester by reflecting upon and analyzing their own memories of moving experiences with art, in order to consider how they might approach developing future experiences for
others. Students wrote narrative essays, describing the experience in specific detail and discussing they found it memorable. Here are some examples.

Chris BeerThe Warhol Museum Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat

Last spring my class was able to take a trip to visit Pittsburg. It was a no brainer that we visit the Warhol Museum as part of our schedule, as it is an innovative art space whose goal is to represent a king of Modern Art, one of the most controversial and influential figures in painting: Andy Warhol. I was interested to see the various works of Warhol’s on display. The collection was at times featured chronologically, and others by media type. The floor celebrating his video work, for example, was provocative and all encompassing. I had not experienced exhibition design like it before. Such a large and developed installation made sense though as the whole museum was dedicated to him…well almost all of it. Warhol had many friends through out his art career. He often collaborated, and had various muses that inspired and at times were featured in his work. One of these artists was a young painter by the name of Jean Michel Basquiat. I fell in love with Basquiat’s painting early in my career as an artist. His sense of expression and use of texture, imagery, wordplay, and colors in the variety of work he completed throughout his career appealed to my youthful sensibilities. I borrowed ideas often from his paintings in my own work. The knowledge I had was only from books and magazines however, and I yearned to see the work in person to get the full experience of this young master’s craft. Right after graduating from Michigan State in 2005, I made it my mission to see in person this collection I admired so much. I went so far as to take a 48 hour round-trip from Lansing, Michigan to New York City to see paintings attributed to Basquiat. I unfortunately left disappointed, as my youthful preparations were not well thought out. I only had time to visit MOMA, a space devoid of the work I craved. Fast forward back to Pittsburgh… Basquiat’s career flourished at the end of Warhol’s life. The two made a series of paintings that were composed of the graphic silkscreen prints Warhol is known for, juxtaposed with rich expressive painting, loaded with the commentary and symbolism Basquiat wove into each work he produced. The series did not represent a changing of the guard as painters from different generations coming together, but a collaboration filled with mutual respect. The compositional elements found in these works spoke to each other in a conversation filled with questions, agreement, and support to the statements the artists were mutually developing. Critics frowned upon the work when it was produced. Its poor reception would prevent the two from creating work together again. As time moved on, both artists were recontextualized and their work regained the stature it deserved. Because both artists were so prolific in their careers, I was sure to find at least one of these works in the space. I began on the top floor with the rest of my classmates, learning about Warhol’s life, and seeing work far different than the Campbell’s Soup can he is so well known for. Next was the museum’s conservation floor. While this interested me, I was eager to continue my search. I knew there was Basquiat painting in the building, because in learning from my past folly, I asked the docent sitting at the front desk. All I needed to do was make it to the third floor. I broke away from the group in the video vault, as the amassing of chaotic images projecting around me was too much to take in. I was on a mission! I snuck down the stairs. Other familiar Warhols like the Last Supper were featured on the floor from the stairs, but still no Basquiat. Then I turned the corner… The painting stood about five feet tall and was 8 feet long created on a spread of cardboard boxes. A giant set of false teeth sat in the upper right corner. Screen printed Brillo boxes morphed into factories billowing smoke. Text was carefully printed, and carefully hand drawn, by Warhol and Basquiat respectively. Faces typical to Basquiat’s style could also be found, reveling in the controlled chaos the two masters produced. It was truly a collaboration of one who made industry from fine art, and one who made fine art his industry. It was interesting that the paint was applied in a much less textured manner than I had guessed from looking at picture books. Due to the fact that no photographs were allowed, and that a museum guard was posted in the room with no sign of leaving, I immediately sat down and started to draw. I wanted to capture every detail, every color shift, and gesture. My ballpoint pen was not fine enough, nor did time allow for a perfect replica, but the heart of the work was copied into my sketchbook. I was interrupted, when almost finished with my sketch, as a classmate texted me with notice that everyone had migrated outside and I would soon be left if I did not hurry out. I finished what I could, took one more look and then departed. It was one of the most profound art experiences I have had. The waiting, studying, and emulating that occurred post viewing led me to appreciate it all the more. I am still on the hunt for more works by Basquiat, but for now am satisfied, not in such a hurried search. The ability art has to draw a person in is quite amazing, and reflects the power it can wield. It is interesting that I may see that same work again, but the experience of it will never be the same as that first encounter. I wonder what the impact will be next time…

Samatha Redles Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Touch Sanitation

Almost a year ago I had the honor of hearing Mierle Laderman Ukeles speak about her work for the first time. Before her speech I had no idea who she was or what her accomplishments were. Ukeles began her presentation with her Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969!, which outlined maintenance as a contemporary art and she proposed a museum exhibition for her artwork and the work of others. At the time I did not understand the purpose or the point behind her performance nor was I able to conceptualize how maintenance was art. I was very skeptical. As Ukeles transitioned to her work at the New York Department of Sanitation as the artist in residence, and her art project Touch Sanitation, all I could think was, this woman is one tough cookie. She began her project in 1977 and was the only woman present working in the field. It must have been strange to explain her intentions as an artist but her performance and research built trust and respect between Ukeles and the workers. For 11 months Ukeles worked one to two eight hour per day work shifts with 8,500 sanitation workers. During the beginning of her performance Ukeles told the workers, “I am not here to watch you, to study you, to analyze you, to judge you. I am here to be with you: all the shifts, all the seasons, to walk out the whole City with you.” The most astounding part the Touch Sanitation performance is the trust she built with the workers. She kept true to her words and considered the men she worked with in her exhibitions. Her awareness and commitment displayed a genuine sense of equality between her and her coworkers. Ukeles discussed details such as the venue with the sanitation workers because she wanted to find a balance between her audiences-the sanitation workers, their families, and the fine art world. She wanted to accurately represent the sanitation department as well as push the public’s perception of art and the sanitation department. Even though I never physically experienced Touch Sanitation as a performance or an exhibition I have continued onward from a past experience. When I was in 8th grade I had the opportunity to participate in History Day, a national contest for elementary and secondary school students that is centered on historical topics and themes. My topic was on the relationship between Theodore Roosevelt, Colonel George Waring, and Jacob Riis and the effect these three men had on sanitation reform in New York City. Reflecting back on the project I intended to connect the influence an artist and his portfolio of work had on the social reform in New York City. Riis’ was a Danish immigrant that emigrated to New York in 1870 at the age of 21. At first he was unable to find work and he lived the life that many new immigrants experienced. He paid five cents a night to share an 8x8 room with seven other men, he slept in the tenements and police lodging houses, and he begged for food. One day by chance Riis heard about an opportunity to become a trainee for the New York News Association. After he was hired he began his experience as a muckraker, a journalist tasked with exposing social ills and political and corporate corruption, he was led into learning about photography. He saw the camera as a documentation tool that had the potential to further expose the conditions the poor and mostly immigrant communities lived. Riis’ was able to capture scenes of the conditions but many were too dark to publish. It wasn’t until the introduction of flash photography that allowed him to capture the conditions he wanted to publicize. Flash photography was the mechanism that provided him with the visual aid to advocate for improvements and enforcement of housing regulations. Sanitation was a part of his cry for change. Riis recognized the need for a cleaner New York and a sanitation system. Riis used his photographs as a tool to target the morale consciences and wallets of the middle and upper classes. He frequently presented and lobbied for cleaner streets, more housing regulations, greener spaces, and the elimination of police lodging houses. Through his work Riis gained the support and friendship of Theodore Roosevelt. Even though all three men did not directly collaborate to bring social change to New York each supported each other’s endeavors, and were politically aligned. My 8th grade History Day project didn’t win or move onto the state competition; however, it introduced me to art and justice matters. It was the beginning of a larger experience that interested me in the question, “How can art be used to spark social change or engage audiences in an issue?” I do recognize that I did not manifest this thought until I was much older but it provided a starting point. It was this starting point that broke from my subconscious while I listened to Mierle Laderman Ukeles speak. Touch Sanitation spoke to me on a level that was personal. The artwork connected me to the leaders of social justice I had researched and reported on years before and it was being connected in the present without her directly mentioning that previous history. The connections I made with her work were so powerful that it brought me to tears. I saw the compassion and the drive she had to drive the ideas presented in Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969! while advocating for the sanitation workers. Her project drew together the right people and kept the people’s needs in mind through out its entirety. In turn the workers received new bathrooms, supplies, and benefits. If I left at the closing of the presentation I would have robbed my self of the opportunity to bring closure to another chapter involving this particular experience. However, I needed to know if she knew about New York original advocates. After her presentation she was bombarded with students, faculty, and friends who wanted to congratulate her. I waited patiently until she addressed me. When I preceded to ask if she had come across George Waring and his White Wings her mouth dropped. She was shocked that I knew who he was and instantly asked, “How do you know about him?” After telling her my story she told me hers and how he is one of her personal heroes. At that moment everything came full circle and the connections were made. I never had that intense of an experience with an artist and a work of art.

Later that year I had the opportunity to see Ukeles speak at OPEN ENGAGEMENT at the Queens Museum in New York. When Tom Finkelpearl took the podium to give the conference’s closing speech Ukeles openly asked him, “Where is the New York Sanitation Department’s Museum?” I used that as a prompt to reintroduce myself as a curator and offer my services if a museum should ever come about. It is possible that the experience isn’t over and that there is an opportunity still on the horizon.

Kehinde BademosiThe British Museum

The British Museum on Great Russell Street, West London was my rite of passage into the world of museums. It was my journey into the Self, a reawakening and a reconnection to the world of my ancestors as a Storyteller. For a moment, I was lost under its glass and steel roof, which allowed the summer sun to pierce my gaping soul, but I was soon found by its million collections of wonderment and stories of lost kingdoms and sheer ironies. The architecture that was crowned with a majestic blue and gold domed ceiling told an organic story of One World, One Truth and Many Lies. In the middle of it all was a Reading room, which allowed me to catch my breath each time I ventured onto any of the museum’s massive four-floor displays. I soon learned it was the nation’s largest museum and one of the oldest in the world. I was so awestruck; I could spend six weeks inside this museum and would not have known that time had passed except for the transparent roofing. Room Four on the ground floor drew me into the ancient Egyptian sculptures, markings, etchings and an exploration into the world of hieroglyphs. Here, I encountered the famous Rosetta Stone, a secret stone to unlocking Egypt’s ancient writings. Then, there were the mummies, coffins and papyrus of ancient writings, which included poetry and complex mathematics. The displays on this floor reaffirmed to me that Africa, indeed was the cradle of modern civilization. How did we lose all of these glories? As an African man coming to see these displays in London, I was mummified by the experience – a native who had to see his native land and history in a foreign land. I was a little enraged that Islam and Christianity, which were both introduced into Egypt by the fourth and seventh centuries respectively, had come to rob the continent of its rich repertoire of self -identity and creativity.

When I learned that there were over 200,000 objects and collections from Africa in that museum, it felt like 200,000 identities were stolen from my native land. Lost identities Robbed pride. Conquered territories. Those were the feelings reenacted by the experience.

Room 25, The Sainsbury Gallery, flew in the face of everything I had ever known about Africa, and especially Nigeria, my home country. The Ivory mask displayed here aptly captured my enraged self. The mask, which was worn by the Obas of Benin, embodied contradictions of our stories as a people. First of all, the sculpted head was that of Idia, the monarch queen, who ruled in the sixteenth century. The twenty-something heads carved into the mask were representations of Benin’s alliances and control over Europe. There were two narratives lost in this mask. One was the non-sexist culture in the old Africa, which allowed women to rule. How did we lose such a beautiful culture where women were not relegated to the kitchen? In Africa today, and in Nigeria, women are seen as only secondary to men – mirroring a chauvinistic worldview of ancient Roman and Greek writings, and the journey to equality is still a very long one. The Ivory Mask revealed to me that chauvinism is un-African. Women once ruled and they were revered accordingly.

Secondly, much of history has been penned with the notion of European’s lordship over Africa and its people. Embedded in Queen Idia, the Ivory Mask, were the trophies of conquest of Europe. How come this part of history is hardly ever mentioned? Or was this lost in translation? These questions are still begging for answers till today. I must have been transfixed by this stupefaction as I journeyed back and forth in one of the oldest museums on earth.

Still on the floor, which housed the African collections, was a display of ‘tree of life,’ an art intervention into the 17-year civil war in Mozambique. This three-meter sculpture was entirely made of used AK-47 rifles, grenade launchers and such weapons of war. This piece, which was engineered by Transforming Arms Into Tools Project, was installed by a collection of local artists who collected over 600,000 weapons. It clearly demonstrated to me that Art could be a tool to curate healing, peace and unity.

I left the museum with more questions than answers. I felt I had walked through 500,000 years of lies, manipulations, and some iota of truths.